When I first begin to eat something, the food tastes good more often, but usually only for a few bites. Once I have eaten some, the food begins to taste bad with ill effects to follow - especially if I chew the food thoroughly. This can also be the case with water.

Once upon a time, I ate and was fine with it, but now I think I have a disordered relationship to eating. Although I never feel hunger, I continue the habit of eating, even past the point where the food turns bad.

Food as a foreign object that exists outside of the body and is not already an integral part of the body, can't be inherently designed to serve the human body.

If food is truly poisonous, how can I want to consume it? And once tasted, how can I want to continue to consume something like that? How can addiction - if disempowering - exist in the first place?

I really want to get to the bottom of my addiction and be free of it. I feel like food, as fundamental as it is to our culture and the physical life on Earth, will be 'the one challenge' I need to overcome to realize my own power.

I think that it is not the food that is addictive. Compulsive thoughts are addictive to the ego and may create certain habits.

You could try to observe your feelings and thoughts about food. You say that you eat even though you never feel hungry. I feel the same actually. When you eat, do you feel afraid of what could happen if you don't eat? Try to feel what you're afraid of: death, weakness, starvation, pain, other people's reactions? Or is it something else that makes you eat? Observe your inner realm closely. Reacting to your fear is the real addiction. Eating is neither good or bad. It is just an experience.

I am not free of the ego yet, but this is just what I would observe to find the answers you are looking for.

My experiences about this: I usually eat, because I feel like I have to, for some reason. For example, I might not want to feel the unease that comes when I'm not eating. Or I think about what other people would think of me if I don't eat for a long time. Or I might be afraid of my body's reaction. (I don't know what my body will do if I don't eat for a long time.) It is always some kind of fear. Even if there is a desire for food. The moment I eat I don't really feel like I do so, because of the desire, but I eat because I am afraid of feeling the strength of the desire which creates a certain kind of pain.

I am not saying you should go against your fear to overcome it, you should just observe your fear to become free of it. Like this, you will expand your conciousness by bringing light into unconscious areas of your life.

I hope I could help somehow.

EDIT: Is food really pleasurable to you? It doesn't sound like you eat out of pleasure.

After thinking about it again in the last few days, I wanted to add 2 things:

Quote:

If food is truly poisonous, how can I want to consume it? And once tasted, how can I want to continue to consume something like that? How can addiction - if disempowering - exist in the first place?

1. Food is a lifelong habit for most people on earth. You started eating even before you were born - in the womb. Also, humans usually derive energy from food. But also pleasure and satisfaction as you mentioned. Your body gets accustomed to this and in most cases dependent on food. So trying to give it up is not so easy, because it may create a void in your life. For example, your body was probably depending on all the energy derived from food - no matter if poisonous or not. So one has to find another access to energy. You will have to find a way to consciously "live on Light". That's at least what I believe, but I haven't experienced fasting for a long time or inedia. Though I think I have experienced what JMW defines as "Love" in his book - or maybe just short glimpses on it. I'm pretty sure you wouldn't care about eating or non-eating in the moment you feel Love. I'm not even sure if saying that Love can be felt is right. For me, when I am in this state or when I feel Love (if I properly understood JMW's definition), it would be closer to the truth so say: I AM Love.

Quote:

I really want to get to the bottom of my addiction and be free of it.

2. Are you sure that something like addiction really exists? How would you define addiction? For me, addiction is just a concept in the minds of human beings useful for warning of dangers or instilling fear on people. Also, pleasure is not the same as addiction. Here's a definition for addiction I found online:

"compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (such as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly :persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful" (link: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/addiction).

So what characterises an addiction is a compulsive behaviour which the person defines as harmful. If you are eating consciously, and it seems to me like you're practising this method, you're not eating compulsively. So how can you be an addict? If you feel an inner force that makes you eat, just observe it. I am pretty sure that you will still have a choice if you eat or not, even if there is a force trying to push you to eat. Does this force really have got something to do with eating? Or do you feel this force/compulsion in other areas of your life? Maybe it is just an emotion from your past? When have you felt this emotion for the first time? This is how I practise, but I am usually not connecting my observation or meditation closely with food. You should also observe what your intellect (in JMW's language) does. Does it judge the food? Calling food poisonous or addictive could already be a judgement. If there is no practical reason to say this, for example, when you're talking to someone, it might be a judgement. If you have eaten all your life, how do you know that food is poisonous or addictive? Observe what you think about food. Observe the feelings that come up.

Quote:

I feel like food, as fundamental as it is to our culture and the physical life on Earth, will be 'the one challenge' I need to overcome to realize my own power.

I think I have felt similar in the past, not only with food. Perhaps this indicates the path you should follow. Or it could just be an illusion you have created for yourself. You will find out for yourself if this is your truth.

My own experience was this: It is usually good if I feel like going into a certain direction and it helps me evolve. As long as it feels inspiring for me and I feel joy on the way. But I found out that no one and nothing can block a person from his inner power. This inner power is Love, it is always there if you truly let go or surrender inside. What I mean with that is just accepting everything that is as it is without fighting the situation inside. This does not necessarily have got something to do with doing nothing or something on the outside. You can do something on the outside and still surrender (in a spiritual sense) or let go inside at the same time, in exactly the same moment. You just accept the outcome whatever that may be. You don't fight the moment inside.

If you think "I have to do X to realize my own power (whatever that means to you)", and you believe this to be your reality, you might block yourself from doing X, because you do not feel your inner power yet. I would say that the following is true: "I AM in my own power and I can do X." Maybe your inner power is already there, you just project it on the outside world (e.g. on food which appears to "block" your own power).

Last edited by Exist on Thu Sep 28, 2017 3:49 pm; edited 2 times in total

When you eat, do you feel afraid of what could happen if you don't eat? [...] Reacting to your fear is the real addiction.

I feel this dreadful weakness after several days without eating and am afraid I will be affected by it to a degree where I stand out too much. I feel really torn in relationship to culture. Like I sacrifice myself to join the culture and also resist it - please don't notice I'm different. I never noticed that like this.

I didn't consider that not physiological dependence on food, but the fear of being 'inherently' outside/wrong drives eating. Fear certainly has a major influence.

Exist wrote:

Is food really pleasurable to you? It doesn't sound like you eat out of pleasure.

At times, I have this growing unease that disappears when I eat... Relief feels good? I can't really pin the feeling down to anything tangible.

Exist wrote:

Are you sure that something like addiction really exists?

On second thoughts - no. I can't actually point to 'addiction' as an element of my experience that 'compels' or drives my actions. There is the force of 'unease', but I need to look into it more.

What I meant with addiction was the possibility that once the body is modified or altered, the new structure functions differently than the former structure - and the body can depend on stimulants to serve now lost functions. (This is a new physiological perspective on addiction.) I could elaborate a lot more on that. Shortly: I hold the body responds to food (which doesn't 'nourish'). Tolerance is developed once the ability to respond fades through excessive activity and whatever then fails to be eliminated comes to saturate the body and hinder its way of functioning with consequences to follow.

I really find your inputs helpful - they help me get outside my own mind so to speak. I have lots more work to do to grasp the more spiritual points you raised. You gave me a direction.

I guess I know what you mean with not being able to stand the weakness or a feeling of unease during fasting. I usually go easy with myself if this is too much for me. Which means I don't push myself too hard when I fast or am on a diet. I just go back more to how I was eating before if this is too much for me. I think there's no need to force yourself into anything. Another option would be to perform certain exercises like energizing exercises (Qi Gong, Tai Chi, etc.), breathing exercises, walking outside, sunbathing, meditation or whatever someone finds useful to load up on energy without eating.

Your idea on food/addiction sounds interesting to me, since your explanation wouldn't make food necessary for the proper functioning of the human body.

I'm glad if I could help you in some way. Please feel free to ask me or talk about the points which are difficult for you to understand. Could be it is already easy for you to grasp my ideas and I just made it more complicated than it really is or used the wrong words to explain what I meant.